Site Mobile Navigation

Ex-Senator Gets Week's Delay on Jail Ruling

Just two hours before he was to return to prison, former State Senator Guy J. Velella was given another week of freedom when a State Supreme Court judge said yesterday that she would need a week to consider whether a mayoral panel acted legally in ordering him back to jail.

The ruling was a victory for Mr. Velella, whose lawyers began court proceedings just before 9 a.m. in a last-ditch effort to save him from returning to prison.

"At least we can say that this will be a nice Thanksgiving in the Velella household," said Charles A. Stillman, Mr. Velella's lawyer. "As nice as it can be under the circumstances."

In her ruling, issued at 3 p.m., Justice Lottie E. Wilkins agreed to suspend temporarily an order by the Local Conditional Release Commission, the mayoral panel that ordered last week that Mr. Velella and four others surrender by 5 p.m. She said she would rule on Monday on whether the five should be forced to return to jail.

Mr. Velella was sentenced in June to a year in jail for conspiracy to accept bribes, but was released unexpectedly in September by the panel, igniting a furor that embarrassed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who distanced himself from the panel although his office had appointed two of the four members.

In the ensuing controversy, Mr. Bloomberg forced the resignation of the panel's four members in October and reconstituted the board by appointing five new members. The new panel ordered Mr. Velella and the two others who were sentenced with him -- Manuel Gonzales and Hector Del Toro -- to reapply for release.

Only Mr. Del Toro applied, and his application was rejected.

Two other defendants released this year, Kamala Stephens, who was jailed in 2003 for stealing thousands of dollars from her former employer, and Carlos Caba, who served time for drug possession, were also ordered to reapply. Their applications were also rejected.

Yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg defended Friday's decision by the new panel ordering Mr. Velella and the others back to prison. Two weeks ago, city legal investigators had determined that the previous panel had acted illegally in releasing the inmates. The investigators said that the panel had often acted without enough members present, and that it had let Mr. Velella reapply for release too soon after he made an earlier application.

"I don't think there's any question that the procedures that the law required were not followed," Mr. Bloomberg said. "They are doing what they should be doing," he said, referring to the new panel, and Mr. Velella "has the right to go to court."

In court yesterday, lawyers for the city argued that, in the interest of justice, Mr. Velella should not get a reprive from jail pending the outcome of legal proceedings, because all time spent fighting in court would be subtracted from Mr. Velella's sentence. A long court fight might mean that he serves the rest of his sentence at home.

"All of these petitioners violated the law," said Stephen Kitzinger, a lawyer for the city. "They all pled guilty and were improperly released due to an error."

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

As a compromise, Mr. Stillman proposed having Mr. Velella come to court and promise to make up any time spent in legal proceedings.

In the end, that was not required. Justice Wilkins said that the issue of time served was a distraction from the underlying legal issues and that she would take only a week to rule. At the heart of the matter, she said, was whether the panel and the Department of Correction "acted properly and within their authority" in releasing the former inmates.

Justice Wilkins gave no indication of how she would treat other issues raised by lawyers yesterday. Mr. Stillman, who said last week that doctors said Mr. Velella has prostate cancer, reiterated concerns about his client's health.

Lawyers for the city replied that Mr. Velella would have access to medical treatment in jail and that he would be taken to outside doctors if he wanted.

Then there was the issue of whether Mr. Velella had exhausted all administrative options to remain out of jail, a prerequisite to taking his troubles to court. Neither he nor Mr. Gonzales had reapplied to the panel for release, an omission that could mean they cannot be before the judge.

However, lawyers for the city said they had not included that point in their papers, and Justice Wilkins said she was considering cases for all five former inmates. She gave the city until today to respond to issues raised in papers filed yesterday by the former inmates' lawyers. And the lawyers have until 3 p.m. tomorrow to make their filings.

Mr. Velella was relieved to hear the news yesterday, Mr. Stillman said. Since his release, the former senator has been following a strict probationary regimen, Mr. Stillman said. He works several mornings a week in a soup kitchen and reports to a probation supervisor twice a week, Mr. Stillman said.

"He was out, and until the firestorm of publicity hit, he was looking to live his life happily ever after as well as he could," Mr. Stillman said.

The shades were drawn tightly last night in the windows of Mr. Velella's small, two-story brick house in Morris Park in the Bronx. No one came to the door when a reporter knocked. He is broadly supported by his neighbors, who say he has been unfairly criticized.

"You do a million good things and one bad thing, and all you can do is focus on the bad," said Joe Reda, 62, a friend and neighbor. "Put this in perspective. The guy is not a criminal."